


A Solemn Vow and Promise

by alby_mangroves



Series: Yuletide Stories [18]
Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Childhood Sweethearts, F/F, Flower Crowns, Language of Flowers, Misses Clause Challenge, Nature Magic, Oaths & Vows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21902233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves
Summary: Anne had been behaving very strangely, and Diana was beginning to worry.
Relationships: Diana Barry/Anne Shirley
Series: Yuletide Stories [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/194729
Comments: 30
Kudos: 107
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A Solemn Vow and Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idanit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idanit/gifts).



> Thank you to L for the beta <3

~ ⚘ ~

Anne had been behaving very strangely, and Diana was beginning to worry.

Just this very morning Diana had woken to a bunch of violets cascading out of a glass on her bedside table, sunlight streaming in to catch the dew still on their delicate petals - which wasn’t unusual in itself - Anne loved to bring flowers into the house at every opportunity. It was only that they’d been arranged just so for when Diana awoke, which Anne mostly did when she was about to apologize for some imagined misstep. Anne had even tied a pretty purple ribbon around them. The morning light had still been cool and the violets very fresh, so Anne had clearly woken at the crack of dawn to fetch them, which meant that she hadn’t slept well, which meant that her mind had been churning, which meant--

Diana had realized then that she could feel Anne’s eyes upon her, and when she’d rolled over to face her, there was Anne, lying in bed but already dressed, her face pink from the breeze and sun, the wild orange halo of her windswept bun spread about her on the pillow. Anne’s grey eyes were shining as though they were about to spill over with tears. 

“Whatever is the matter,” Diana had whispered, now truly alarmed, gently caressing the contours of Anne’s beloved face, the curve of her cheek, the sweep of her brow, as if to coax the words out of her. Diana had been at a loss. She’d never had to work for Anne’s willing and plentiful conversation before. But Anne had just smiled a very watery smile and kissed the palm of Diana’s hand, and then her knuckles, softly, one by one, until Diana had been a little flushed herself, and sinking willingly back into their soft bedding. By the time Anne had made her way down to the buttons of Diana’s nightgown, unpinning her own red hair from its bun along the way to tease and tickle over Diana’s skin, Diana had completely forgotten the flowers and her concerns alike. 

It was hours later, and Diana could still feel the way Anne’s soft, pink mouth had found her breasts, lavishing gentle attention on them just the way Diana liked best, before descending to kiss and caress her belly, her hips, the thick locks of her hair dragging deliciously all over her until Diana could stand the delightful teasing no more and opened her thighs to welcome Anne between them. Anne had looked up at her with those stormy eyes as she gave Diana pleasure, and Diana shivered just thinking about their wonderful honey-sweet and sun-drenched morning, though the afternoon was syrupy warm. 

Later, Diana had put up Anne’s hair for her again - she loved to look at it and feel it, and it pained Diana that Anne never could accept that she truly thought it beautiful - and they’d parted ways for the day with kisses and sweet words, and Diana had been busy with chores. But Anne had yet to return from her errands, and Diana’s mind turned back to the recent long silences, to Anne’s lingering gaze upon her when she thought Diana wasn’t paying attention, and to the way Anne had been gone from home for long hours at a time over the past few days when the farm needed her - when Diana needed her. It was so unlike her that something was surely wrong.

By the time she heard Anne’s steps on the front porch, Diana had worked herself up into a right state, imagining the worst scenarios, worthy of Anne’s most dramatic tales. Anne had grown tired of her. Anne had had enough of their quiet life and longed to reconnect with her university pals. Tall, elegant Anne resented being stuck at Green Gables - the home they had been keeping together since Marilla had passed - and had finally realized she had much grander aspirations than keeping a farm with little old Diana Barry. Anne had fallen out of love. Diana covered her mouth with her hand.

Only Anne had come in smiling happily, taken Diana by the hands that still trembled from her attack of panic, led her out of the house like a red-headed Pied Piper, and now here they were walking hand in hand out into the woods beyond Green Gables, and Diana was none the wiser about any of it. In fact, she was more confused than ever. Anne had at some point resumed her usual chatter and Diana shook off her malaise and focused on the words; maybe Anne would explain.

“We really ought to be walking the proper path through Lovers’ Lane but needs must, my dear Diana, the needs being that we get there quickly and the must being that this is the most direct route, though not nearly so romantic.”

“Why must we get there quickly, and where is there?” Diana asked carefully. One never knew with Anne, whether to let her go on until the meaning unfolded itself from amongst the words or to interrupt her and hope for the best that this wouldn’t result in a segue into another topic altogether.

“Why, to catch the light, of course, it’s really the most wondrous thing, I simply don’t know how we could have missed it all these years, Diana. Or perhaps,” and Anne came to a complete halt, pulling Diana to a stop beside her, a slightly manic look in her eyes. Diana waited patiently for a single thing to make sense. “Perhaps it wasn’t there at all before, and has just appeared because I needed it to.”

“That sounds...entirely reasonable,” Diana said, “Whatever it is has appeared by magic because you needed it to.”

Anne looked at her, smiling. “Precisely.”

And so off they went, the woods whispering all around them, from slender, silver-leafed poplars to broad, old oaks. Diana didn’t have Anne’s easy words to describe the wonders of their home but she felt its beauty keenly. Perhaps she’d have picked some wildflowers along the way, too, but Anne was hurrying along, bubbling with excitement and very nearly dragging Diana up the path.

It wasn’t long until Anne pulled her away from the path through some break in the foliage only she could see, and...Diana’s breath caught. They emerged into a small clearing, and within it, a fairy ring of stones.

“Oh, Anne,” Diana breathed. “Is it really?”

“Yes! Isn’t it the most wonderful thing?” Anne was walking slowly from stone to moss-grown stone, her hands thrown out to touch leaves and flowers as she went. It was a small clearing, a meadow, dense ferns and flowery bushes growing in a tight perimeter - a very intimate place, and a beam of sunlight streamed through the lilac trees, their soft purple flowers in full summer bloom, lending the whole place a lavender hue. Soft grass lined the ground which was divided by a narrow ribbon - a tiny brook, water bubbling quietly over a white pebble bed. No wonder Anne had been in raptures over it.

Diana looked about her, stunned. “Anne, is this where you’ve been disappearing to? To make this little place?”

“Oh no, Diana, everything was already here, I just found it like this and cleaned it up a little, and then I knew exactly what I had to do, and now here we are, and isn’t it splendid?”

Diana just nodded. It was much easier that way.

Anne had led her into the center of the ring, and sat her down on the springy grass beside the tiny brook, settling herself on the other side.

“I have been wracking my brain over the _where_ , never mind the how and the when, but the _where_ is so important, don’t you find? So often one reads the most wonderful, romantic tale of tragedy and woe and then somehow love triumphs - of course it does, it’s love! Love must always triumph over adversity! - but the _where_ is glossed over or forgotten entirely and that could never happen with us because we have so many _wheres_ right here in Avonlea, but it had to be over moving water, don’t you see? And I simply couldn’t stomach our _where_ to be somewhere that other people have had _their_ wheres.”

Anne had run out of steam, and now sat looking all around the clearing, as though she was memorising everything, the sunlight stained purple through the lilacs and the lavender abuzz with bees, the silvery brook and the whispering of the tall trees above. As far as _wheres_ went, it was a truly wonderful _where_. Diana sat up a little and took Anne by the hand, guiding her face and her eyes back to Diana’s.

“Anne, my darling. Please won’t you tell me what we’re doing? As truly lovely as this place is and as excited as I am to know of our very own fairy neighbors, I’m afraid my poor heart can’t take much more of this suspense,” she said, and clarity came to Anne then, and she was completely focused on Diana now, so much so that a shiver came up Diana’s spine, bringing with it the delicious memory of Anne’s complete and undivided attention on every inch of her.

“Diana, do you recall the day we first met?”

Diana smiled. “Why, of course I do, how could I forget it? Marilla brought you to us, Mother shooed us out of the house, and we went out to the garden and made fast friends that day.”

“Yes, we did, didn’t we? Well, you may recall that we swore something that day. I made vows to you, and you to me, and you promised to be my bosom friend forever and ever.”

“And you, mine,” Diana echoed, remembering well that sunny, bright day, which had seemed ever brighter once Anne was in it, much like every single day since.

“Exactly.” Anne quieted, and seemed very serious all of a sudden, and reaching beside her into a patch of grass, brought out two flower crowns woven from lavenders and daisies and cornflowers and lilacs. Diana’s breath quickened as Anne chose one and placed it over her head. She lifted the other but Diana took it from her hands. Whatever they were doing, they were doing it together. She placed it carefully on Anne’s gorgeous hair.

Anne, blushing from her throat to the tip of her nose, looked up earnestly into Diana’s eyes, and took both of her hands over the running water of the brook. “And I have finally found the right place to tell you, Diana Barry, that I have adored you from the very moment I first saw you. I adore your soulful eyes, and your soft arms where you hold me so well. I adore the black curtain of your hair and the sound of your laughter and the home we’ve made together. I adore the very ground you walk on, and I solemnly swear to be your faithful bosom friend, as long as the sun --”

“--and the moon shall endure,” Diana took up their childhood vow, remembering. “Oh, my dearest, darling Anne.” 

Anne’s eyes were shining once more, and she let go of one of Diana’s hands only to bring out a small velvet box to hold out to Diana, who took it, and opened it, and gasped. “It’s Marilla’s amethyst brooch!”

Except it wasn’t, she soon saw - it was the amethyst all right, Marilla’s most treasured possession - but no longer a brooch. Diana lifted the delicate chain to swing the beautiful gem from her fingers, sunlight catching it and turning its deep purple to a cascade of light over the meadow.

“Yours now, if you will accept it. I had Mr Farrow at the jewelers rework the brooch into a pendant; it was so old fashioned and I know Marilla loved it, but I should hope she would forgive me for modifying it a little, she would, don’t you think? It was too big for a ring, but a pendant, we thought - Mr Farrow that is - thought it would be lovely, and I agreed. Oh, do please say that you will accept it, Diana, purple was never my colour but on you it’s poetry and I wished that day we first met that I had something to give to you, but everything I have is already yours.”

Diana smiled helplessly. There was her Anne, a million thoughts at once and all trying to get out at the same time. _Poetry_. She felt foolish for having doubted her. If there was one true constant in the whole world, it was Anne’s pure and earnest heart. 

Diana took the pendant into her palm. It was as magnificent as she remembered. 

They could not exchange rings; Avonlea had long since accepted them as a matched set, but the world at large was not so kind. They were truly lucky in love and friendship right here in the place that knew and loved them regardless. So, no rings, but they could renew a solemn vow and promise written that summer day long ago in the Barrys’ garden. Diana held the pendant out to Anne.

“Will you put it on me, darling?”

“I once thought that amethysts were the souls of violets,” Anne said in a faraway voice as she hung the silver chain around Diana’s neck, smoothing her hand over the ruffles and buttons at her throat, and coming to rest over her heart alongside the brilliant amethyst.

Diana covered Anne’s hand with hers and rose up on her knees to bridge the gap over the brook, kissing Anne’s pink mouth. “I solemnly swear,” she said and pulled Anne to her across the brook so they could lie down together among the rustling brushes and the magic of the fairy ring, awash with the scent of violets and lavender, to consummate vows made so long ago.

~ ⚘ ~


End file.
